Preloved by Shirley Marr

the rumours going around that you’ve completely lost it, but I think it’s unfair. You’ve had to deal with a fair bit this year. I told my mum to let your mum know that we’re not part of this.”
    She walked up to me and put a hand on my shoulder. I almost had a heart attack. I wasn’t used to human contact.
    Oh gosh, that’s so nice! I wanted to say. If only it was true that I had “completely lost it”. That would be so much easier. My lips twitched with wanting to tell Nancy the truth.
    “Thanks,” I said simply instead.
    “Hey, before you go,” said Nancy, “you know, you haven’t called me Nancy Pants since we were five.”
    I swear I saw her grin for a microsecond before she began organising her files and checking the textbooks in her bag as if we never spoke.
    Logan stood waiting for me.
    I touched the locket and stared at him.
    I looked around. At Nancy still in the room. At the students starting to arrive in the corridors.
    I looked back at Logan.
    He smiled at me and tipped his finger against his hat to salute me.
    Whenever I ask too many questions, Mum has this saying that goes, “The heavens don’t let you know for a reason”. This comes from the belief that when souls go to the underworld, they are forced to take a long and hard road so that by the end, they will drink what is offered to them at the gate. The drink makes them forget their previous life, so they can go forwards to the next.
    I should have told Logan that sometimes ignorance can be bliss.
    That once something is known, it cannot become unknown.

Chapter 7
    “Here we go.” Nancy dumped the faded red box onto the table. “The ball photos.”
    She blew at the dust on the lid. When it didn’t budge, she licked her thumb and scrubbed at it.
    “Ewww,” she said, looking at her blackened thumb. 1988 , declared the box. I lifted the lid and we both peered inside at the … actually, I didn’t know what I was looking at.
    “Um, when you say photos, what do you mean by that?”
    “They’re on slides. Jeez, Amy, did you expect me to hand you a USB stick?” Nancy picked up one of the cells from the tray. “There’s a projector in the media room over there. Go and set it up. Here’re the instructions.”
    Nancy held out a mouldy-looking piece of paper.
    “Unless you want to run and fetch the yearbook instead. But I doubt you want to face Mrs Marshall again.”
    “I’ll be fine with the projector,” I said, grabbing the instructions from her. I wasn’t in a hurry to see our librarian again, especially since I recalled shouting at her to mind her own business. Unintentionally, of course. I glanced at Logan. I wondered how long until the white van and the man with the net came to get me.
    I grabbed the big rectangular box and headed for the door marked “Media Room”. Logan followed me. I balanced the instructions on top of the box while I grappled with the handle.
    “Here, give me a hand,” I said to Logan, and I dropped the box into his open palms. I wanted it to fall right through and annoy him. I felt like I needed some sort of humorous release from all this angst I was carrying.
    To my surprise, the box stayed where he held it in his hands.
    “You can’t fool me, Amy Lee: you taught me the power.”
    Logan stepped between me and the door.
    Then, quite slyly, he said, “You remind me of the babe.”
    I knew that line was from the movie Labyrinth . Where an owl turned into a hot goblin king at a masquerade ball that a chickenpox-covered seven-year-old version of me desperately wished she could go to.
    “The babe with the power … the power of voodoo,” I found myself whispering. “You do. Remind me of the babe.” Then I recovered. “Excuse me,” I added quickly, but Logan just stared at me. He refused to move, so I walked around him and stuck the key in the door.
    “How did you know how to answer me?” Logan asked.
    “My mum’s got the movie on video. She lived through the Eighties. I’ve watched